Facebook Unveils New Video Tools, Instagram Scheduling Feature

Aimed at video creators and publishers, Facebook has announced some new features to its video capabilities and now publishers will have more tools to use with its Watch Party and Creator Studio tools. Facebook also announced Instagram and IGTV scheduling features. The company also noted that Facebook Live was now also available on the Facebook Lite app.

The social networking giant made the announcement during a session at the International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) taking place in Amsterdam.

For Live Videos, the company will expand the features available to Facebook Pages to encourage live broadcasting by professionals on its social network. It will be easier to simulate and test broadcasts with Live API, which can be now restricted to that page's team, including administrators and editors, TechCrunch reported on Monday.

For page administrators, the social media giant is adding two new metrics to the Creator Studio, which lets seeing how many watched at least 60 seconds of a Party video.

In terms of live video, Facebook says it listened to feedback from those who have been broadcasting live on its platform, and is now rolling out several highly requested features to Facebook Pages (not Profiles), according to TechCrunch.

As for Instagram and IGTV, Facebook says that publishers and creators can now schedule Instagram Feed and IGTV content for up to six months. Drafting and editing will soon be possible, in a few more months. The feature was spotted in the wild ahead of the announcement, the report notes. Notably, Instagram has allowed scheduling through third-party apps since last year, but the new native option isn't as limited.